Mexican Business Leader Drafted To Solve Nation's Economic Mess

MEXICO CITY — Mexico's government and business community were very much at odds when the country's economic crisis began in 1982.

Former President Jose Lopez Portillo blamed bankers for the flood of capital that poured out of Mexico as oil prices plummeted. Calling them traitors, he took over the banks.

That act was the culmination of a long series of government intrusions into the economy. Price controls, subsidies and the nationalization of businesses, ranging from airlines and steel mills to bottling companies, all provoked business criticism.

Now, the government is trimming back its economic role and the current president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, is asking the business community to help bring in the investments and the international customers to make a private enterprise economy work.

The man pressed into service to lead that effort is Miguel Aleman, son of one of Mexico's best-known political figures and until last year the top operating officer of Televisa, Mexico's only commercial broadcast TV network.

''Mexico really believes in the new trade and investment policy,'' Aleman said. ''I am telling people what we are trying to do in Mexico.''

That role is crucial for the Salinas administration, which is counting on foreign investment and access to international markets to bring this country out of the 8-year-old economic crisis.

Salinas could hardly have picked a better link to the business community.

Although the ambassadorship is the 57-year-old Aleman's first government job, he understands politics well because of his family background.

He also believes strongly in Salinas' free-enterprise approach. ''We had a make-believe economy for 20 years,'' he said. ''We had a very paternalistic government. Everything was rights and no obligations.''

Aleman is eager to play a part in helping Salinas succeed. And he has the clout to do it.

Aleman is chairman of Mexico's major aluminum manufacturing company and sits on the boards of mining companies, a brokerage house, an insurance company and a lumber company.

In addition, he and one of his two partners in Televisa own a major publishing house, Novedades Editores.

By all accounts, Aleman is among the richest men in Mexico, although he declines to place a dollar figure on his personal wealth.

''Above all,'' said one Mexico watcher in Washington, ''Miguel Aleman is a very important symbol.''

For three generations of Mexicans, the name Miguel Aleman has meant power, prestige and a preference for personal liberty over the country's traditional paternalism.

The Alemans have embodied those characteristics so strongly that the word Alemanista has become a part of Mexico's political lexicon. To be an Alemanista is to be pro-business, pro-United States and a firm believer in limiting government's role to building roads, ports and schools - the foundations that individuals can use to build a prosperous economy.